Google Employees Are Too Confident, And Too Isolated From The Real World

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engine

11:58 am on Jul 7, 2014 (gmt 0)

I have met many very smart people in my time, in many areas of business, and i've nearly always been impressed with their expertise and knowledge: I've also met the individual with problems that can't accept they might be wrong. On the most part, they are correct. However, it's true that some i've met are smart, but have little common sense, or lack the ability to grasp that non-technical people might not actually agree with the concept they are describing, or that the benefit they see is different, for whatever reason.

The real world is not full of people that understand everything to the depth of some, and that's why there are "experts" in a particular field.

At his blog, Apenwarr, Google Fiber engineer Avery Pennarun is largely complimentary of Google and its employees: "I continue to be amazed at the overall smartness of people at this place. Overall, very nearly everybody, across the board, surprises or impresses me with how smart they are."

However, Pennarun says, "Smart people have a problem, especially (although not only) when you put them in large groups. That problem is an ability to convincingly rationalize nearly anything."

piatkow

1:39 pm on Jul 7, 2014 (gmt 0)

It is an issue in any large organisation that people become institutionalised and see the world through company blinkers.

lucy24

4:02 pm on Jul 7, 2014 (gmt 0)

I was thinking of the Ivy League Problem. You get a pool of kids who are used to being at the top of their class, quickest to undertand everything, best-and-brightest-- and then you throw them into an environment where everyone was at the top of the class. So you need to find a different way to stand out.

brotherhood of LAN

4:30 pm on Jul 7, 2014 (gmt 0)

It just does seem like the polarisation of like-minded people in the same place. Maybe it's something Google need to keep an eye on when hiring people. I think a lot of programmers fall under similar personality types, maybe this guy isn't one of them... he should have became a social worker ;o)

It may well be that there needs to be a balance of people for the best outcomes, rather than all the best people for a particular job.

piatkow

9:26 pm on Jul 7, 2014 (gmt 0)

The best team that I ever worked in for outcomes was four very different characters. There was a lot of tension at times but but the different approaches meant that we found solutions to problems rather than trotting out a stock answer all the time.